thought inexpedient to startle these recently acquired and scarce reconciled citizens, by legislation which they might misconstrue into arbitrary misgovernment taking advantage of their helplessness. In 1802, 1816 and 1818, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois had been successively and quietly admitted under the terms of the ordinance of ’87. The country was thus in a state of perfect repose so far as this question was concerned. All early excitement had died away, a new generation had arisen in Congress, and new intellects were roaming about seeking the material for agitation and display. At this juncture Missouri applied for admission to the Union. A large majority of the Northern members at once decided that they would in all future legislation bind themselves irrevocably to the free principles of the ordinance of ’87. Missouri, it was true, had at the time a large number of slaves within her borders, but upon these vested rights as the South was pleased to call them, the North did not propose to encroach. But they contended, that up to the last moment of her territorial existence the paramount authority of Congress over her could not be questioned. The Constitution in providing that “new States may be admitted into the Union,” must have intended to allow Congress to exercise some discretionary power in the case, and how could such power possibly be exercised if not by imposing conditions upon the high privilege they were bestowing. Was it to be in the power of any community, no matter how barbarous their laws or how monstrous their social habits, to claim admission into a Union already the hope and admiration of the world, simply upon showing that they numbered the requisite population and had set up a Government which they might choose to call republican? Such a doctrine could never be tolerated in a civilized and Christian society, and never had been acquiesced in heretofore by the general Government. Not a single State had yet been admitted, except upon some conditions or restrictions. And if the general principle were once allowed that the power to impose such restrictions existed, could a case be imagined more urgently demanding its exercise? Were Congress to be called upon at this late day to roll back the tide of legislation which ever since the “immortal ordinance of ’87” had been flowing on towards the fulfillment of those bright visions of universal freedom and equality in which the fathers of the revolution had indulged? Could it be, that the southern members, who had uniformly mourned over slavery as the greatest of evils, and had proclaimed again and again that it was a heavy hereditary curse of which their constituents longed to free themselves, could it be that these very statesmen were seeking to extend this curse, to perpetuate this evil, and fasten upon the growing west an Institution that Washington, Madison and Jefferson had denounced as demoralizing and debilitating?